Senshi Family: Shared Burden
by Knoto
Summary: Setsuna and Hotaru stay up late thinking about some of the aspects that are inevitably part of being a Senshi. Oneshot. Some subject matter that requiers an open mind.


Senshi Family Ties: Setsuna and Hotaru.

A/N: Alright, now that I have a halfway competent computer back I need to get back into my Fan fiction writing like the good ole days. Because I'm out of practice I decided on a song fiction. The reason I'm using this combination is not for romantic reasons. I see Setsuna and Hotaru as a mother and daughter. Also, I see a great deal of promise where both characters can not only inter relate but perhaps share more in common than the other Senshi. I've always preached that Hotaru and Setsuna had so very much more potential than what they were given in the many series. This is my attempt to shed some light on the two characters.

Song: Galileo  
By: Indigo Girls

'thoughts'  
"Spoken"

_Song lyrics  
_Actual Story

I DO NOT OWN SAILOR MOON!!!!

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Setsuna sat at the kitchen counter after another long day in the outer household. The only thing illuminating the area around her was the moonlight from the bay window. Her shadow cast movements on the wall surely this was a normalcy. Being the mage of time, she had plenty of it to idly waste musing about topics of a seemingly useless nature. The current topic that held her interest was a man who she had known quite well when he was alive. Galileo. Sure, she hadn't known him personally; however he did stir up quite the ruckus in his lifetime. If only the world around him had listened, the man had insight, and back then sometimes insight lead to trouble. Idiot people with idealistic ways, it wasn't very long ago when she had to deal with the less savory ways humans lived life. Lucky for the other Senshi she was the only one to endure those lithesome years.

After one has lived for countless millennia it becomes redundant to point at each and every person who had caused a wrong in a lifetime. It stood to reason that what really becomes important in the end is what the individual had done with the time given to them. If this could be true though that what would that mean for her, or a far more fearful thought, for her daughter. Hotaru had aged past the accidental rebirths that had been granted because of lab experiments, and for the most part she could now lead a seemingly normal life. All of the Senshi could be at ease for the moment. This gave time for thoughts unbecoming of a Senshi, and Hotaru was the current victim questioning herself. If the other's had noticed they hadn't showed it.

_Galileo's head was on the block,  
the crime was looking up the truth.  
And as the bombshells of my daily fears explode  
I try to trace them to my youth._

'Dear lord' she thought to herself pulling herself up from her current seat. Walking to the fridge she pulled out a bottle of beer and cracked the top. She wasn't an overly obsessive drinker, and her tolerance for the stuff was far from being matched. Taking a swig and walking through the house colored in nothing but a simple dull grey it never occurred that Hotaru would bring up musings lost by Setsuna so many years ago. She wasn't ever really a child, not that she could remember. Then again, 'Do the Senshi even have a childhood anymore?' that seemed to be a constant question within her mind as of late. Neither Setsuna nor Hotaru could even get to piece together the sibilance of a childhood. Spastic aging, along with no memory of a rebirth left Hotaru in a less than innocent in the ways someone her age should be. Setsuna had been alive for so long if she actually had an upbringing with a real family it hadn't been something she could recall within the depth of her mind.

The night before had been the first real night that left an unsettling air within the household. One that not only demanded its musings, it commanded solace, something rarely sought and hardly a feeling that could possibly be shared by the other Senshi as a community. Yet, things were never written in stone, the conversation last night had been proof.

Setsuna was drinking her nightly beer at that counter, just like always. Hotaru had come down from her room and found a seat next to her motherly figure also cracking open a beer. Hotaru wasn't of age; however she never had randomly and freely drank alcohol. A red flag in most parents' book became only an item of interest for Setsuna. In her mind she'd rather her daughter drink in the safety of others than on the street, and god only knew if anyone had an excuse to drink away her teenage angst it would be Hotaru.

_And then you had to bring up reincarnation  
over a couple of beers the other night.  
And now I'm serving time for mistakes made by another in another lifetime._

"Do we ever really die?" Was the quiet question, seemingly thrown into the wind, yet it held merit, Especially to Setsuna. "I mean, you figure I've died how many times in how long?"

"Well, about seven in my lifetime." Response casual, surely this wasn't a confusing topic, however that then begged the question, "Though, it depends on whose lifetime you are referring too, and within what stream you wish to know your answer from." Cracking another beer she wasn't one to disappoint with her explanation. "Chibiusa for example isn't alive yet, thus you have died zero times within her lifetime currently, even if you do know her already. Then there are the others, who have also died, thus I would need what timeline to go by, in short, you've died innumerable times. We all have."

"Perfect." Sighing Hotaru gulped at her own beer before raising an eyebrow questioningly "Remind me again why the hell I end up being the one to clean up the mess at the cost of my life. Yeah, I know Senshi duty and all that jazz, but there's more right?" turning her chair she offered a different question she'd rather have answered. "I mean, when can I just Stop being Sailor Saturn, when can I just be me, without having to fear what will happen should we screw up down the line?"

_How long till my soul gets it right?  
Can any human being ever reach that kind of light?  
I call on the resting soul of Galileo  
King of night vision, king of insight._

"I have no idea, I still wonder about that myself. You're not the only one who feels like someplace we got a raw deal." She shrugged before looking at her own hands, how many lives had she taken in battle, how many times had she been granted life after she should have died. "Even so, I can't help but feel we must be needed at the moment. If we weren't then we wouldn't have been reborn, right? Then you have to wonder, is there ever really anything past death but eventual rebirth? If that's the case then I guess we're stuck. If there is something past that then what is that something? Salvation, redemption, or is it like being condemned as just as it stands now? Face it; we are the only two Senshi who will be severely punished for wielding our powers in ways our deities dislike. At that point what does it matter? That's what I used to think when I was younger, yet some of that still holds true I guess."

"True." Hotaru nodded as she slumped over her own drink again attempting to configure those words into some type of truth. "I sometimes wonder if I am the dark messiah, even without that mistress or pharaoh controlling me. However if that's the case, then that makes Usagi the one of light. If we care to believe anything fate wants to tell us then wouldn't she be a goddess herself? If that's the case is she the actual redemption? Does that make me something that can't be saved?"

_And then I think about my fear of motion,  
which I never could explain.  
Some other fool across the ocean years ago  
must have crashed his little airplane._

"Well, that's one way to think about it I guess." Setsuna willingly agreed before she finished the last of her beer. "However, it's been my experience that one shouldn't question things like that. All you'll do is drive yourself nuts." She paused momentarily thinking back to the Silver Millennium. "A very wise queen once told me to stop tracing the string of fate and to live for me. Back then I believed fate was the only truth, however if that had been the only thing to believe in she wouldn't have died and the kingdom would still be standing today. Had I actually trusted my fear for the future we would have known about the attacks beforehand, once again a paradox within my life. You're the same in a different way."

_How long till my soul gets it right?  
Could any human being ever reach that kind of light?  
I call on the resting soul of Galileo  
King of night vision, king of insight._

"That's one way for a good piece of advice to go balls up, eh?" Hotaru sighed.

"And that's one way I think you have spent far too much time with Haruka and Makoto." Rolling her eyes at the crass language used on a daily occurrence, 'to each their own' was a thought Setsuna liked to implore on a daily basis to herself when she found Hotaru becoming less reserved with her ways of speech. "Then again, can't say that wasn't called for in that situation. Yes, the advice did seem to go 'balls up' as you put it, but that was only once. Granted one must take everything with a grain of salt, but for what the advice was it held practicality. Usagi is the same way, but you already know that much."

_I'm not making a joke, you know me; I take everything so seriously.  
If you wait till the time till all souls get it right  
then at least I know they'll be no nuclear annihilation in my life time.  
I'm still not right._

"Well, isn't that just dandy? Let's just put all of our faith in the daughter of the woman who caused one of the disasters that caused trouble before." Hotaru scoffed before her face softened. "It's the reckless streak isn't it? It's in the genes I swear, Chibiusa is the same way. Then again, it's that same recklessness that kept you all from killing me. I wonder why she did it. It's not like anything got reversed after I was reborn."

"I would think her ideals play a large role in it all. She may be selfish, but she is our Usagi: Moon princess, soon to be queen. I would think her uprising will be a fine day should she apply herself. The future is never written in stone after all. If it had been, we would have really had to kill you. I guess things are funny like that, deities normally don't get along like that, and wars are the result. Usagi though, I don't know perhaps she's the one who'll never be wrong."

_I offer thanks to those before me, that's all I've got to say.  
'Cuz maybe you squandered big bucks in your lifetime  
Now I have to pay.  
But then again it feels like some sort of inspiration  
To let the next life off the hook_.

"As long as I don't have to kill of another planet I don't really care if she's right or wrong. I really don't want to reawaken anymore. If I do happen to die, for the love of anything merciful on this earth let me stay dead. That's all I ask any more really." Hotaru stood from her seat and moved into the living room sitting in the bay window. It was the same one Setsuna was now staring at almost twenty-four hours later, barely enough time to let things sink in.

'How many times have I been reborn in my life?' was now a question Setsuna had to ask herself, even more so she found that those questions meant very little to the daily life and at the same time she found herself unable to move past the fears of what fate could dish out as a possible answer.

_But she'll say, Look what I had to overcome from my last life,  
I think I'll write a book.  
How long till my soul gets it right?  
Can any human being ever reach the highest light?  
Except for Galileo, God rest his soul  
King of night vision, king of insight._

'If the world around us can indeed attain retain a level of redemption then just maybe the past failures won't mean a thing.' Setsuna picked up an old novel worn by use and withered by time she found her pen and continued to scroll her thoughts, long ago Setsuna believed fate was the only option, but now she knew better than that. Whether it be from the rise of a new kingdom or the end of the constant rebirths shoved upon them Setsuna was determined to test the laws of the universe just like Galileo, fate be damned.

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